Ten With Ken (audio)

Last week, Ken Steele looked back at some major PR headaches sparked by students and faculty, from white student unions to a blogging board member. https://youtu.be/qn0ylCsR9Jw But some of the biggest media relations migraines of all start at the top, with board chairs and presidents. At Western University, president Amit Chakma’s double pay made headlines in 2015, but he had done nothing wrong in accepting a contract with administrative leave. The bigger issue was that the board committee normally responsible for negotiating such contracts was bypassed, and the board chair, Chirag Shah, seemed responsible. A task force made 22 recommendations for governance reform at Western, and Shah stepped off the board at the end of his term last November. The year’s biggest PR headache, though, was the abrupt resignation of UBC president Arvind Gupta, only a year into his term. The board hired a passionate reformer with a bold agenda. Gupta didn’t have the usual university administration experience, but instead had foun